New Post!

Hello! I know I haven't posted anything in a while. It's been a mix of being really busy and not really feeling like writing about everything. But at the same time I hate to leave things unfinished, so I must continue!

Things had not been going so well the last couple of months, and I ended up switching host families. It was a tough decision and a very tough time for me, but I really know it was the right choice.

I now live at a new adress closer to downtown. It is actually the same host family that Gaetane, a girl from Belgium, had this year. Though her program was only for three months (a trimester) so she went home late November. The family wasn't actually planning to host anyone again so soon, but they were kind enough to let me live with them in their home. I have been here now for three weeks, and so far everything is going really well. I am really happy here! Their names are Adri and Annet Stoffers, and they have a son and a daughter who are older and live on their own. They also have a really friendly black dog named Bayla.

So, a lot of things have happened in the last couple of months. I celebrated Sinterklaas with my first host family, and it was really nice. I got the orange tulip umbrella that I had been wanting so badly!

Then there were the Christmas holidays, which consist here of two days: Eerste Kerstdag (1st Christmas Day) and Tweede Kerstdag (2nd Christmas Day). Present giving during Christmas isn't as common here as it is in the States. It is more common to have a nice dinner with your family and relatives, and that is just what we did. I made challah (Gail's recipe!) for Christmas Dinner, and everyone enjoyed i t! Then the next night I made matzo ball soup. The way Annet described it was "krachtig": powerful!

Here is everyone for Christmas dinner, though it isn't a very good picture. From lower left clockwise: Adri, Ilse, Johannes, Ernst, Charlotte, Annet

There was also of course Hanukkah, which I was also able to celebrate here! The father of Johannes, the boyfriend of my new host sister, happened to have a menorah that I was allowed to borrow for the eight nights. He is a sort reverend at a church, and he usually uses it to teach kids about other religions. So he also had a cedar plate and a yad and other Jewish stuff!

It was nice to show my host family about Hanukkah. They really liked the candle lighting. I think they were actually more enthusiastic about it than I was! Annet had even secretly searched up things about Hanukkah, and when I came home one evening she was busy making latkes! It was quite funny.

And the menorah made a good impression in the window, because the Jewish woman who lives two houses away stopped by to tell us how beautiful she thought it was. When the woman found out that I was Jewish, she wanted to take me to the Synogauge in Groningen. She doesn't go to temple much, but she invited me to go with her just to che ck it out. So we went on Sunday for a special Hanukkah celebration. The Jewish population in the north is so sparse, which I found a bit depressing since apparently the population was so large before World War II. But it was a nice experience nonetheless. And it was special because I felt like the fact that I was Jewish inspired these women to want to go to the Synogauge. And we were all brought together because of our religion.

Then there was New Years, what is here called "Oudjaar Nieuw." O n 31 December we made olliebollen and appelflappen, which is traditional in Holland to do on New Year's Eve. Here is Annet making the oliebollen:

And then everyone of course enjoying the oliebollen!

had posted a picture of this, but it was so unflattering of everyone that I had to take it off! haha>

It is normal to eat a ton of oliebollen on New Year's Eve, and it is common to do it with powdered sugar (poedersuiker). Oliebollen are also for sale during the holiday season nearly everywhere in the big cities; from sidewalk stands that are usually illuminated with festive lighting! The only disadvantage of eating them outside is that the powdered sugar gets everywhere! Well, they can actually be dangerous eaten inside, too, as I remember Adri one time caughing after having accidentally inhaled the poedersuiker from his olliebol. Haha, it happens.

Ilse and Johannes also took me to see carbid schieten on New Year's Eve, which is a very Drents thing (typical of the Drenthe province). In essence, it is really just blowing the caps off of old milk buses in a huge field. I just saw one group lighting them off, but I could hear lots of other people carbid schieten nearby. It was quite a sight- not just the explosions themselves but also the whole activity. People were just kind of gathered in the middle of a field, someone was blasting techno music from big speakers on the roof of a car, there was a huge trash can fire, a couch, a tent, milk buses, a flaming torch...etc. A very strange tradition. A long rope is tied to the caps so that after they blow off people can go and retreive them, and shoot the caps off again. And they do this the entire day.

In December I often had to bike to school and back in the dark because the days were so short! I really noticed the difference here- there are less hours of sun light in the winter here than in Providence. Though now the days are beginning to get a bit longer, and right now it is a nice point because sometimes I catch the sunrise on my way to school. Unfortunately I am usually running late and don't have time to stop and take pictures! Got to work on that!

The weather has gotten colder, resulting in an ice skating craze! People are skating everywhere! I think the ice skate was actually invented in Holland. I went skating on a small pond on New Year's Day, though am yet to go skating on the canal! Here is the pond on which I went ice skating. Note the klompen!!

I send my love to everyone! xox